1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel preventive medicament against infection with mycoplasma or, more particularly, to a preventive medicament against infection with mycoplasma having a mycoplasma-killing activity so as to exhibit an effect for inhibiting infection with mycoplasma.
2. Background Information
Mycoplasma is a unique microorganism which, different from bacteria, is devoid of cell walls to exhibit polymorphism and requires sterols and the like. In the microbiological classification it is intermediately positioned between bacteria and viruses. Some of mycoplasmas are known to act as a pathogenic microorganism against human beings including the pneumonic mycoplasma to cause pneumonia, ureaplasma to cause non-gonorrheal urethritis and the like. It is also reported that, in addition to these infectious diseases in the respiratory organs and urinogenital organs, mycoplasmas may have some relevancy to the etiological factors to cause various diseases concomitantly occurring as a complication of the above mentioned diseases such as lesions in the central nerval system typically exemplified by lesions in the cerebral nerves, chronic articular rheumatism, acute salpingitis, acute pelvic diseases and the like.
Despite the enormous volume of the investigational reports and the very long history of studies on mycoplasmas, no conclusive results have yet been established of the pathogenicity of mycoplasmas so that known chemotherapeutic medicaments are very limited including only macrolide antibiotics and tetracycline for the time being. Accordingly, it is eagerly desired to develop a novel anti-mycoplasma medicament which can be administered to patients without undesirable side effects to the human body.